We know the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, jumped from animals to humans. Now, a biotech company is using genetically modified animals to create human antibodies with real potential to fight it, says Sioux Falls Business.
BIO member SAB Biotherapeutics “developed a first-of-its-kind therapeutic approach,” which creates antibodies that “work within a patient’s own immune system to both neutralize the virus and activate the other components of the immune system that are important to helping the body fight the disease.”
The platform uses genetically engineered cattle as “plasma factories, capable of producing blood plasma and human antibodies at a faster rate than humans could,” as Futurism explained.
It’s safe and effective. The antibodies are created in a “controlled environment” proven to be safe in trials and effective against MERS-CoV, the coronavirus causing Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, which is similar to the new coronavirus.
This is what we mean by One Health—a term increasingly being used by health experts “to better focus on the linkages between human, animal and environmental health and the need to develop comprehensive solutions.”
And it’s why we need BARDA. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, awarded SAB $5.3 million in 2016 to test the therapeutic on MERS-CoV.
And it’s why, whatever happens with the new coronavirus, we must finish the research we start. “[We] have a tremendous amount of historical information and data about how we can potentially respond to this new coronavirus. That has allowed us to have some very directed strategies about how we bring this all together in order to respond,” said SAB CEO Eddie Sullivan.
Read more about One Health.
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